Trees and Bears

I carefully shifted my weight to get into a more comfortable position - trying hard to be absolutely silent. By now, Ingrid, a guy named Sebastian and I had been quietly sitting in the woods - waiting - for about two hours. Our guide was a couple of meters away, staring into the trees or at his phone.

He had picked us up in his old silver car from a parking lot behind a McDonald's a couple of hours earlier, led us into the forest and instructed us to sit, relax and wait.

Looking up at the trees, I thought surely there are people in this strange world that pay much more than we had just to meditate. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the cold that had started to creep up my bare arms as the strip of gold from the setting sun descended the trunks of the pines around us.

Eventually, the guide moved us to a different spot facing a clearing and we waited some more. Just before darkness fell and all hope was lost, it arrived:

A bear appeared at the edge of the clearing and, after sniffing the air, slowly trudged into it, foraging for food. We were able to watch it for some time, straining our eyes in the growing darkness until it was barely recognizable as a darker shape moving about in the slightly lighter surroundings and disappearing into the absolute blackness of the forest on the other side of the clearing.

(Photos and video by Ingrid Muñoz)Read more